Andromeda, Day 387

-Currently FTL. I think Ryder is...making a gun? Armor? Tinkering. She's got some skills, that kid. She knows her way around machines. Of course, so do I, but more construction, from old jobs.

-Coordinated a nice deal back on the Nexus, without even setting foot there. That's how good I am, Heleus. Boom!

-Playing poker with Gil. He seemed worried. Like he was actually having a hard time beating me. I won a couple hands too. I think if I keep practicing this I'll beat him soon.

-To do: look up 'human poker tells' when I get the chance.

Andromeda, Day 388

-Why does Ryder keep on asking me to come down to the surface with her? Drack is tougher, and Cora is a powerful biotic? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely a better fighter than Liam, or Peebee. And we need Jaal. But why me? Oh well, gear up.

-Holy shit this planet is freezing. How do the angara do this?

-I guess this is even worse for me than it is for Ryder. Damn humans, you don't know the meaning of the word cold until you have metal exoskeleton. I'm sorry, that's mostly sarcasm on the ride to our destination. Mostly.

-Alright, gearing up to assault this Kett base. Do your thing SAM.

-Decontamination.

-Oh shit.

-Fucking hell, I hate the Kett even more.

Andromeda, Day 389

-Okay, so I think Ryder is throwing herself into tasks around here so she doesn't have think about what happened at the Kett base, but while we're tracking down ice space whales, I'm going to write this down, because I don't want to forget any of this, when we're fighting the Kett later.

-We arrived at the base, got through the shield, fought some dudes, and went through a decontamination chamber. And then we had this view, down on a group of Kett, mind controlling angara, and leading some sort of cult thing. Jaal is pissed. I am too. He's heartbroken. Ryder keeps going, and we fight on, until we're stuck in another decontamination, and forced to watch as this Kett does something to this angara. The angara...shifts, and changes, before our eyes. The Kett calls it exaltation.

-The Kett, or many of them, at least, are angara.

-Jaal is...almost crazy with grief and anger. And we keep fighting, and find this Kett bitch trying to exalt an angara Jaal says is the Moshae. We wreck their shit, and I get the Kett bitch at gunpoint as Ryder talks to her.

-The aforesaid Kett bitch says if we spare the facility, she will spare the hundreds of angara inside, and Ryder agrees, as does Jaal. The Moshae hates it, wants the place blown up. But I see Ryder. Ryder is furious, I can tell, and hurting. She was not ready for any of this, I don't think. She's not the hero, or the warrior, or the soldier her dad was going to be. She's not ready to kill all those people, I don't think, so she spares the facility, giving the angara time to get out of there.

-And here's the one good thing, though, the sort of I really like about Ryder. She just shoots that Kett in the head, and we walk away. That bitch didn't deserve any better after what she did to those people.

-To do: ahh shit I really do need to talk to Jaal.

Andromeda, Day 390

-Vault active, kett shit wrecked, getting an outpost set up here, with permission of the local angara. Shit, Ryder, you make this look easy. But we're going to have to go back to Aya and talk to the Moshae eventually, you know?

Andromeda, Day 392

-Good conversation with Ryder today, on our way back to Aya. She walked in on me in the little room I've made for myself, looking at pictures I took of the exaltation chamber with my omnitool. And I explained that some of the equipment looked like stuff I had seen on Aya, Havarl, and Voeld, and was talking to some of the angara I had met, trying to figure out where the Kett got this stuff. I was...pretty upset when she walked in, I'll admit. A little more emotionally vulnerable. Stupid, but she didn't take advantage, and I appreciated that. She made the point that Scott is her little brother, just like Sid is my little sister, and we're both all that's left of our families. And spirits forgive me, but I actually opened up about raising Sid, after the disaster of Mama Nyx and Papa Arterius. But then she shared stuff about her parents.

-Sorry, it's just weird. Not used to talking this openly about stuff. Spilled my guts pretty much, about my dad, stupid decisions I made as a kid, bounties. I actually told her that I was afraid of not coming home to Sid. That someday I wouldn't be there for her. And she said something about me being strong and smart.

-Note to future self: I don't take praise well. Like talking myself up, not so much from other people.

-So I retort that I may be those things, but also I'm just damn lucky. All those shootouts and fights I got in in the Milky Way? Only dumb luck I survived, not any special skill. Plenty of kids in similar positions didn't. I once walked away from an exploding hanar ship because I had fallen asleep in the escape pod. Later I learned it was an assassination by some top-shot drell fucker, and only dumb luck I survived. The fact I wasn't killed in my sleep by a collision with the Scourge? Dumb luck. What if that luck runs out on me someday?

-Sara Ryder: "I won't."

-I said something else to wrap up the conversation with her. But what does that mean? Does she know something I don't? Is she trying to be my friend? 'Cause I don't have many, aside from maybe Drack, and a friendly poker rivalry with Gil. I need to think. But this much is true, Vetra Nyx, Ryder's good. She's smart, friendly, kinda adorable, honestly, when she's not being a smartass. Knows how to handle a shotgun. You made the right choice, getting on the Tempest. Stick with her until you've got your feet under you in Andromeda.

-To do: figure out what Ryder's up too. She's good at what she does, but she must have some angle with me, right? She's trying to get something, even if it's just friendship, but I need to know what.

Andromeda Day 393

-Met up with that Evfra guy, and the Moshae. I think they were shaken by the news, but at least they trust us now that we've saved their scientist lady. Ryder and her think they have a lead from a vault here on Aya. We're going to go after the Archon, as soon as we leave. Going to steal some important Remnant tech from him, but first we need to find a traitor. Surprise, it turns out this was not quite the first contact for the angara. The Exiles already ran into them. There's a traitorous angara in exile custody, who might know the way to the Archon, who might know where the center of this vault network is. Meridian. Gonna make a home for all of us, terraform all the worlds at once. Keep us fed, keep the lights on. Permanently. Make a future for us. At least that's the plan.

-We're going to have to go to a planet the Exiles camped out at, named Kadara. This is big news. I know a lot of those Exiles. I need to make contact with them again. Honestly, this Kadara sounds like a lot of places I used to hang around.

-To do: stock up the Tempest before we head out.

Andromeda, Day 393

-Finally left Aya. As we were leaving Jaal and I met in the kitchen, and we had a bit of a conversation. Started with normal inquiries into turians, and Milky Way history, but then turned into something more. He said I pretend to be mad at Sid all the time because I don't want to be vulnerable. No weakness.

-Infuriating stuff, I know, but does he have a point?

-To do: be more vulnerable, maybe? Call Sid and tell her I love her.

Andromeda, Day 394

-Scanning a new system on our way to Kadara. And it hits me. Looking down on the storms spinning across an uncharted planet, as the star comes into view as we orbit around it. This is a sunrise no turian has seen before. No one else from the Milky Way. Maybe no one ever. The sun filters through the atmosphere for a second, refracted red and orange, and plays across Sara's face, as she stands at the helm of the Tempest.

-Maybe there really is something romantic running after all these sunrises no one has ever seen.

-We are all wanderers.

-I think.

-I'm thinking of this, eating the dextro variant of blast-ohs, when Ryder walks in on me. Leather jacket off this time. Her hair is different, shorter, I note with passing interest. Note to self: hair is interesting. Why do so few other sapients have it? Highly decorative. Maybe it's something like our colony face markings. I think she's just woken up.

-But, as she eats the version of blast-ohs she can eat, she strikes up a conversation. At first I think it's just a little more small talk, but then she starts asking about how things felt. How it felt to raise Sid, when I wasn't even old enough for bootcamp. How it felt to be a kid on a border world, trying to keep me and Sid alive. Did I experience the Skyllian Blitz? How was it to work on construction?

-And in all honesty, I nearly lied, or shut her up right there. I trust Drack in a fight, I trust Kesh to make a deal. I'd lay down my life for Sid without a moment's hesitation. But other than them, I don't trust people. Not easily, at least. But I remember my conversation with Jaal, and the way Ryder has reached out before. So I decide to trust her, tell her what it was like.

-Spirits I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

-To do: not sure, be okay with being vulnerable?

Andromeda, Day 395

-Huh, I guess I really am going to do this journalling thing every day. Ryder has a habit of stirring things up.

-Landing in Kadara, and immediately Drack comes up to me. Turns out he had a few run ins with some smugglers peddling "genuine" Krogan quads. A few of his people want payback, and he wants me to go. Says they may have some angara goods I could use. Ryder is going to meet with Kelly, to talk about the traitor. Me and Drack have time to deal with this.

-Drack is good to have in a fight. We didn't even have to kill anyone. Break some kneecaps, and they won't try to scam the Krogan again. And I've got some fancy...fruits I think? I'll find someone who wants these.

-Ryder's back. The Exiles are going to be killing the angara, but apparently there's something he buried out in the wasteland that can lead us to the Archon.

-Also some guy named Reyes apparently hit on Ryder. She seems...uncomfortable as she talks about it, if I'm doing the reading human faces accurately thing. There have been some murders out in the wasteland, and he wants us to investigate. We need Kadara to be stable, someday, if we want an outpost here, and this war between the Exiles and collective does no one any good.

-Got the transmitter.

-We're investigating these deaths, and this guy keeps flirting with Ryder. It's clearly making her uncomfortable.

-Alright, some stuff went down, but Sloane wants us to meet her tomorrow. Looks like we're spending the night in the Nomad.

Andromeda, Day 396

-You know, I know this planet is a toxic wasteland, but it looks pretty at night.

-It is really hard to get comfortable in a Nomad with a snoring Krogan. So me and Ryder went up to the roof. Camped out here, taking turns sleeping, gun in hand.

-Ooh, shooting star. Bit of satellite breaking up in orbit, I think.

-Alright, my watch.

-Huh, Ryder snores in her sleep. Not like Drack, shaking the Nomad, but soft, and kinda wheezy. God, she is so insane in combat, and still so small.

-Practice describing humans. Ryder is small, but I've seen her muscles on the Tempest. Lots of little dots on her face. What are they called? Freckles? They're cute. She's cute. She's…

-Sorry, she woke up, and we talked for a bit, before shee went to sleep. About Earth, her mom, Ellen, who's dead. Her Dad, who sounds like a bit of a prick. I think she's hiding something. Hiding some pain, about her brother, her mom, her dad, hiding underneath her snarky exterior. I mean it has to be painful, but she's always so sarcastic. Except with me?

-She mentioned an ex, on the Citadel, talking about how it's weird that they're probably dead. And I ask who he was, without thinking, trying to match human social customs, and there's that flinch, like she does with Reyes. And she says, flatter than is normal even for humans and their one set of vocal chords, "I'm a lesbian," and I'm like...okay I know I've heard that word, but what exactly does it mean again?

-Oh wow, Earth's history is messed up.

-Apparently there are STILL people on isolated colonies and enclaves of Earth who aren't okay with people being gay, or, I guess, lesbian (is that the same thing?). Weird. Fortunately I can wow Ryder with my new human knowledge and tell her I'm bi. She seems to appreciate that. Her face moved a whole lot, into a grin.

-Alright, Drack is awake, time to set up this meeting. Why am I feeling so mad at Reyes?

-God, I love Drack. Kesh is lucky.

-Showdown time.

-Holy shit, Reyes tried to shoot Sloan, and Ryder saved him, I got a few shots at him. Why am I so mad?

To do: fuck Reyes up. Why am I so mad?

Andromeda, Day 398

-Leaving Kadara, contacts set up, bringing popcorn.

-Oh, I'm mad 'cause she doesn't like men and he didn't respect that. That makes sense, Vetra Nyx.

-Time to bring the fight to the Archon.

-Gotta call Sid. Is Sid a lesbian? I mean, I just learned the word, and it isn't something I've ever heard someone other than a human give a crap about, but I guess someday she may be finding someone. Do not want to think about that. Just tell her you love her, and don't tell her how dangerous what you're doing is.

-Cora's talking to me. Military, but not bad. Talking about my deals on Kadara, but agreed to let things rest. I told her the Scourge woke up Sid, not me. Oh well, everyone has to lie sometimes.

To do: DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT

Andromeda, Day 399

-Archon here we come.

-Holy shit, the Salarians. We need to save them.

-I'll finish writing after we do this. Tomorrow.

To do: do this.